A pair of images from NASA’s Aqua satellite show the Los Angeles metropolitan area on Nov. 16, 2008. The top image posted on NASA’s Web site shows the Southern California area as a vast plume of smoke billows out over the Pacific Ocean.

The bottom image provides a closer view of the area around Los Angeles and two large fires burning there: the Freeway Complex Fire and the Sayre Fire. The Freeway Complex Fire has burned nearly 24,000 acres in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

Fanned by high winds, blazes stretching from Santa Barbara to Anaheim, Calif., have scorched an estimated 35,000 acres, according to news reports.

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